Honest Abe

The election of 1860 was the final straw for the south: Abraham Lincoln, a member of the new Republican Party, was voted President of the United States. He was the first Republican President and his views contrasted sharply with those of the southern states. Republicans in this time period were determined to keep slavery confined to the old south, or maybe even abolish it altogether! Lincoln's victory started a landslide of secessions.  The first to go was South Carolina, it was followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and Georgia. Georgia's secession was chiefly caused by the pro-slavery mindset of most of it's citizens. However, not all Georgians were in favor of secession, in fact the final count of the vote was 50,243 in favor of secession to 37,123 against. One very vocal Unionist (those against secession) was Alexander Stephens. Although he held Unionist views, after Georgia's secession he accepted the role of Vice President of the Confederacy  On March 21, 1861, he spoke about why the South wanted to secede, these were his exact words: 

"The prevailing ideas entertained by Thomas Jefferson and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature - that it was wrong in principle - socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent [temporary] and pass away. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. . . . and the idea of a government built upon it. . . . Our new government [the Confederate States of America] is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid - its cornerstone rests - upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man. That slavery - subordination to the superior race - is his natural and moral condition. This - our new [Confederate] government - is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth"